Homogenisation of Orthographies
The argument that Indigenous languages require revitalisation through more pronounced roles across the fabric of society has not been explored extensively since 1994. The need for language development remains a remnant of the liberation project that commenced with the dawn of freedom in South Africa in 1994. While political freedom and other liberties were obtained, Indigenous languages remained under the chokehold of English and Afrikaans. As such, the case for the revitalisation of Indigenous African languages has become a social justice issue and a matter of redress in line with the constitutional imperatives (Constitution of South Africa, section 6 (2) and (4)) of “parity of esteem” and equal recognition of all official languages (De Vos, 2021). There appears to be an urgent need for affirmative action to redress the imbalances that exist in the manner languages are chosen, treated and used as official languages across commercial, educational, social, media and political spaces in South Africa, with particular reference to multilingual spaces such as Gauteng.
Within the South African education system, the case for revitalisation is not helped by the current status of academic literacy education. Various studies (Mullis et al., 2012; Spaull, 2023) have established unequivocally that South African learners struggle to read for comprehension across grades, with rates as low as 19% being obtained in some cases. When coupled with dysfunctional school systems (Spaull, 2023) and haphazard curriculum changes (Dixon, Excell & Linington, 2014), the case becomes dire. Various studies have exposed multiple factors in and out of the school systems that appear to hinder epistemic access of learners, resulting in low reading literacy scores. These vary from resource availability (Jansen, 2019; Pretorius & Spaull, 2022), teacher quality, the nature of academic literacies (Meiklejohn et al., 2021; Yafele, 2024), language-related matters (Brock Utne, 2015; Heugh, 2013, to mismanagement of time (Taylor, 2009). However, these factors do not take into account the nature of the orthographic structures in the learning of African languages and their effect on the reading abilities of multilingual learners in different reading and writing contexts. There is strong evidence that points to internal discrepancies in the orthography of some African languages (Mahlangu, 2016; Makutoane, 2022; Matlosa, 2017), and these appear to have a bearing on both reading performance and pedagogy. The different orthographic systems across African languages are one of the factors that impede epistemic and lexical access to academic literacy. It is these inherent orthographic discrepancies that this paper intends to explore. In doing so, the paper recognises the multidirectionality and multisectionality of the matters involved in academic literacy pedagogy and practice.
While arguments have pointed to a lack of zeal on the part of the government of South Africa to deliberately promote, develop and intellectualise Indigenous languages (de Vos, 2021), a poor school system (Spaull, 2023), poor teacher training (Chetty, 2019; Taylor, 2009), poor curriculum development (Dixon, Excell & Linington, 2014), as well as limited resources and funding (Jansen, 2019), the element of strategy for implementation appears to have been overlooked. Not much work has gone into examining the inherent discrepancies in the orthographies of African languages and the effect these discrepancies have on literacy learning. What has remained unclear are the strategies to develop and intellectualise Indigenous languages. In a country of 12 official languages spoken in different regions, such strategies have to accommodate the multilateral issues of social, economic, cultural, racial and linguistic diversity within the country. The national thrust towards inclusion in diversity adopted at independence in 1994 appears to have compromised the status of Indigenous languages and the contributions they can potentially bring to the national cause.
The benefits that accrue from deliberate efforts to revitalise Indigenous languages are well known (see the work of the Center for Advanced Studies of African Societies (CASAS) harmonisation project of African languages, and Banda, 2015, p. 261). What appears fuzzy is the role that international, developed and economically strong languages such as English have in this endeavour. This literature article posits that Indigenous languages stand to gain extensively from a terminological, lexical and pragmatic association with multinational languages. This view stems from the premise that dominant languages such as English, French, Mandarin and others can be used in partnership with Indigenous languages for literacy development. Development is here viewed as related to freedom, dignity, choice, participation, reduction of inequality and discrimination (Matsinhe, 2014; Coleman, 2017b). The partnership with English and other developed languages can only assist in enriching Indigenous languages rather than deprive them. A deliberate approach is required to understand the trajectories followed by already developed languages and the lessons that can be drawn from them in implementing the standardisation and revitalisation of Indigenous languages. English in the role of torch bearer can assist in harnessing the benefits of advancing the national thrust towards inclusivity in diversity, as well as meeting constitutional obligations wherein languages should enjoy parity of esteem. I argue that lessons from English could assist in making the development of Indigenous languages easier, particularly in the South African context (Figure 1).
In 2022, a mixed methods study was conducted on Grade 7 learners in three primary schools in the Soshanguve area of Pretoria that approached schooling through isiZulu, Sesotho and Xitsonga in the foundation phase before transitioning to English in Grade 4 (Matavire, 2023). The results of this study highlighted the multilingual nature of many South African classrooms, where the choice of languages for teaching and learning is often a problematic enterprise. These problems arise both from the fact that learners have different levels of proficiency across different languages, and from the inconsistencies that occur across the orthographies of these languages. In the classroom, the learners encountered different orthographies for languages they spoke, rendering literacy learning confusing and difficult.
Academic Literacies in Multilingual Spaces
The teaching of academic literacies sits at the centre of what schools, colleges and universities are established to do. The central role of academic literacies is reinforced by the high correlation between academic success and overall language proficiency (Makalela, 2016, 2019 Yafele, 2021). For this reason it is critical to constantly revisit and reconceptualise the academic literacies that align with the prior knowledge and experiences of those for whom they are established. Put differently, academic literacies need to be constantly re-examined, expanded on, and re-contextualised. In the case of Gauteng, a multilingual urban province of South Africa where every one of the 11 official languages are represented, the need for academic practices that resonate with the people is critical. In environments where people are often bilingual and multilingual, the recognition of people’s translanguaging and languaging realities is important in all language skills, and more so in writing. When there exists discontinuity between what people speak and how they write, there will be problems. An example is seen in Sesotho where the phoneme /wa/ in South Africa is written as /oa/ in Sesotho of Lesotho, so is Modimo (God) and Molimo, respectively. Within the same language words and sounds are written differently. Reading and writing patterns have been known to differ across languages and orthographies (Hutzler, Braun & Jacobs, 2008; Land, 2015; Ziegler & Goswami, 2005), and that the reasons for these variables are hardly explicable, given they occur in the same environment.
The linguistic nature of South Africa, with its 12 official languages and largely multilingual population, calls for inclusive strategies to harmonise the phonetic, phonological, orthographical and lexicographical structures of the African languages since they operate within a single geographical and spatial area. Such inclusive strategies are required to review current circumstances in which the orthography of Indigenous African languages and their structures were developed in the pre-independence era, under colonial circumstances, and in some instances by foreign colonialists. Such orthographies continue to apply to decolonised learners and literacy practitioners. Some of the questions that arise from the application of older orthographies include: Is it possible to imagine a multilingual environment where all languages within a particular space subscribe to the same phonological and phonemic ascriptions of the same alphabet? What happens to reading and writing literacies when the same letters of the alphabet have different sounds across the various languages spoken by the learner? Can the commonalities of Bantu languages not be exploited for improved reading and writing literacies among multilinguals? The idea is to acknowledge the multilingual realities that come with diversity while tapping into the opportunities they provide.
The Alignment of Orthographic Systems
When multilingual children in multilingual environments learn disparate orthographic systems depending on the language they are using at any given time, this is bound to confuse the learners. When languages spoken by a multilingual learner have contrastingly disjunctive (Sotho, Tswana and Sepedi) and conjoined (isiZulu and its cognate dialects, Tshivenda and Xitsonga) systems, but exist within a single space, this tends to complicate the whole academic literacy endeavour. The orthographic depth hypothesis proposes that a phonological representation is assumed to be assembled by the reader who makes use of the orthography’s correspondences between sub-word spelling and sound (Katz & Frost, 1992, p. 2). This means that the reading process for multilinguals and multiliterates needs to have orthographic alignment with less visual orthographic distance for improved lexical access. I discuss this assertion below in this article. Within the group of alphabetic orthographies, there are large differences in the degree to which writing systems adhere to a strict alphabetic principle. In orthographies where the pronunciation of words is predictable from their letter-sound representation or grapheme-phoneme representation, readers perform more easily by making mental constructions of sound based on the spelling of words (Land, 2015).
The isomorphic relationship between letters and the sound/phoneme which those letters represent varies from one language to the other. The phoneme /chi/ as in children in English is spelt /tshi/ in isiZulu and its cognate dialects, /tji/ and /tjhi/ in Southern Sotho and Setswana, /xi/ in Xitsonga, /tshi/ in Tshivenda and /tschi/, /tṡi/ and /tṧhi/ in Sepedi, /ci/ in ciCewa/ciNyanja and /chi/ in chiShona. The sound /c/ is pronounced differently across the Nguni sub-cluster languages. Similarly, the phoneme /ba/, as in Bantu in isiZulu, is often represented as /va/, /vha/, and /bha/, depending on the orthography of the language. These discrepancies can be found in the manner in which nearly all consonants are used in spelling systems. The spelling of the City of Tshwane often presents a challenge for many university students, for example, with spellings such as Tswane, Tshwane, Tsiane and Tcwane being used in their work. The discrepancies become even more pronounced in word division, particularly in Xitsonga, Sepedi, Sesotho and Setswana. The disjunctive system prescribed for many African languages by missionary literacy pioneers in Africa is identified as particularly problematic for early literacy (NEEDU, 2012). Agglutinating morphemes are disjunctive in Sesotho, Sepedi, Setswana and Tshivenda, whereas morphemes are conjoined in isiZulu and its cognate languages in the Nguni sub-cluster, as well as in many others within the Bantu languages cluster. Meaning rests in, and is realised through, agglutination across Bantu languages. Meaning is carried in the entire agglutination rather than in isolation, regardless of the combination of several morphemes together. The principles in terms of which letters are combined to form words differ across African language orthographies, with adverse effects on word division and writing as a result. Instances in which agglutinating morphemes are separated from the root word are common across several Bantu languages. For example, vha kha ḓi ḓo lima (they planted) in Tshivenḓa, le bitso la hao ke mang (what is your name?) in Sesotho, as opposed to besingakam’bizi (we have not called him yet) in isiZulu, and achangozotaura (he shall eventually speak) in chiShona. The problem with writing bound morphemes as if they are independent words or free morphemes is that it corrupts the agglutinating morphemes, and runs counter to how Bantu languages work. As a result of the agglutinating morpheme, there are fewer morphosyntactic rules in the Nguni languages, for example, than in the Sesotho sub-cluster as well as in Xitsonga and Tshivenda where the disjunctive system or a combination of disjunctive and conjoined systems apply.
In terms of the rules governing agglutinating languages, the following sentence, uhambe kahle in isiZulu (2 words of average word length 5.5) would translate into, “u be le leeto le le bolokgilego” (have a safe journey), a sentence of seven words, with an average word length of 3.6. When this sentence is articulated it is clear that it should be written as “ube leleeto lelebolokgilego”. The same argument could be made in Tshivenda where the verbal sentence, vha kha di do lima could be written as “vhakhadidolima” (verb). Similarly, in Sepedi the phonological articulation of the question le bitso la hao ke mang (what is your name?) would appear as “lebitso lahao kemang?” in a conjoined system. When extended to Xitsonga this can be seen in hi le khaya ka Paul (this is Paul’s home), loko u dakwile, a wu koti ku lwa (when drunk you cannot fight) and byala a byi na tlhari (beer has no spear). As such, the articulated form and the current orthographic form do not align. To bring the alignment, these sentences could alternatively be written as hile khaya kaPaul, loko udakile awukoti kulwa and byala abyina thlari, respectively. At the word level, different ways in which disjunctive and conjoined systems are mixed serve to illustrate the way noun classes are written. For example, ku famba (to walk), ku vona (to see), and ku tidya (to dress), on the one hand, and valeteri (lecturers), bo ntate (fathers), tinhlamulo (answers), yinhla (curve) and nwana (child) on the other. The discrepancy between disjunctive and conjoined systems is also seen in verb classes such as tinhlamulo (answers), ku huha (to play) and nwana (to drink). These examples reinforce the argument that the orthographies of Indigenous languages need to be brought closer to each other as well as closer to the alphabetic principle. With reference to the Soshanguve case study cited previously, the urgent need for revisions to the orthographic systems was highlighted by the fact that various languages with contrasting orthographies were spoken and written by the same children, in the same classrooms and community, and added to the complexities of learning in a multilingual classroom.
The use of the diacritic sign to illustrate intonation or stress and unstress patterns in the word (often called tone marking, see Wissing & Roux, 2017) and the accompanying differences in word meaning could be left to the reader as an issue of simple structuring on the part of orthographers and lexicographers. Examples are available in the English and Nguni languages where word meaning is both context dependent and subject to change. Just as the English word “project” has multiple meanings, so do tamba/ṱamba, damu/ḓamu and thavha/ṱhavha (play or bath, dam or breast and mountain or stab) in Tshivenda. In Xitsonga this is seen in nanga (flute) and n’anga (traditional healer), nwana (to drink) and ṅwana (child), and yinhla (curve) and yinhla (angle). The same applies to Sesotho where the diacritic is also prevalent. The articulation can easily become the responsibility of the reader to derive from context. This is the case in the words ho roka/hộ roka in Sesotho and Setswana, where the diacritic sign presents a challenge to multilingual learners who study these languages as home or first languages at school. The major problem often occurs when the phonetic signs still inherent in these orthographies do not exist in the Roman alphabet but have to be gleaned from symbols when using common digital literacy technologies such as a keyboard or other 4IR gadgets such as cellphones, tablets or iPads. In the words of one of my colleagues, “these symbols are archaic, outdated and divorced from our current literacy realities” (Mandende, 2023).
Table 1 below illustrates the orthographical differences between isiZulu, Sesotho, Setswana, Tshivenda, and Xitsonga in the sentence, “learning different languages is important for promoting diversity”.
Orthographic distance between English and South African languages
| Language | Sentence | Number of words | Average word length |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Learning different languages is important for promoting diversity | 8 | 7.25 |
| isiZulu | Kubalekile ukufunda izilimi ezehlukahlukene ukugqugquzela ukubumbumbano phakati kwezihlanga ezehlukahlukene | 9 | 11 |
| isiXhosa | Ukufunda iilwimi ezahlukileyo kubalulekile ekukhuthazweni kokuhlalisana kwabantu abahlukileyo | 8 | 10.88 |
| Sepedi | Go ke thuta maleme a o fapafapanego go bo hlokwa kudu go tšhwetšheng pele pharologanyo | 15 | 4.8 |
| Sesotho | Go ithuta maleme a go fapafapana go bo hlokwa kudu go godiseng pharalogayo | 11 | 5.45 |
| Setswana | Go ithuta go buwa dipuo/maleme a a ferologaneng go bothlokwa mo go rotloetseng kitlano le go thlaloganya mekgwa ya matshelo ka go farologana | 23 | 4.82 |
| Xitsonga | Ku dyondza tindzimi to hambanahambana swina nkoka eka ntlakuso wa swilo swo hambanahambana | 13 | 5.65 |
| Tshivenḓa | U guda nyambo dzo fhambanaho ndi zwa ndeme u itela u vhumba vhushaka vhukati ha tshaka dzo fhambanaho | 18 | 4.67 |
Notice the semi-conjoined orthographies in which the agglutinating prefix is written as a separate word in Xitsonga and Tshivenda. The disjunction is more pronounced when one considers the average word length in the Nguni languages and the Sotho-Venda languages sub-cluster. When juxtaposed with the word count of English, one can understand the mediating role that English could possibly proffer in harmonising the orthographies of African languages in South Africa. The range of 4.67–11 is arguably very wide for languages within one classroom (Zulu, Botha & Barnard, 2008). Expecting learners to deal with such discrepancies in orthographic systems at a time when intensive, formative academic literacy learning should be taking place, considerably increases the difficulties likely to be experienced in attempts to develop academic literacy. These differences in orthographies are clearly different from those in language structures and patterns. Rather, the discrepancies arise in part from the effects the different orthographies bring to the academic literacy practice such as the confusion brought by different sound-symbol correlations. It would appear from the data that a conjoined writing system with consistent structure across languages would benefit learners more in those languages that still use a disjunctive system such as Tshivenda, Xitsonga, Sesotho, Setswana and Sepedi.
One way to understand the discrepancies in the orthographies of African languages is to trace the origins of those writing systems. This has a bearing in that pioneers of orthographies often built the writing systems on the basis of their own first languages (Mahlangu, 2016; Muangi, Njoroge & Mose, 2013). It is commonly accepted that most African language orthographies were developed by missionaries (Makutoane, 2022; Matlosa, 2017). In many instances, these missionaries were not fluent in the relevant languages (Mahlangu, 2016, p. 124), resulting in numerous discrepancies (Msimang, 1998, p. 169). Those orthographies have been maintained with little development in some cases. In other cases, the cognate dialects of the same language have different orthographies within one country (see the work of Matlosa, 2017 and Makutoane, 2022 on the case of Sesotho, Sepedi and Setswana), as well as across different countries (Sesotho has different orthographies in South Africa and Lesotho). These distortions have severe effects on the identities, cultures and politics of the language speakers, on the one hand, and resource availability, teacher education and communication, on the other. In essence they do not appear to support constitutional efforts towards unity in diversity. A consistent orthographic system would benefit multilingual learners, readers and writers, particularly in the South African context where the majority are multilingual.
The logic for a harmonised orthography is the basis on which this paper proposes that English could provide guidelines in terms of which African languages can be standardised and so develop their own systems.
Orthographic Depth
The orthographic depth hypothesis postulates that “the more closely an orthography conforms to the alphabetic principle, the more efficiently phonological representations will mediate between print and lexicon” (Katz & Frost, 1992, p. 2). Put simply, a phonological representation is assumed to be assembled when a reader makes use of the orthography’s correspondence between spelling and sound. Letter–phoneme relations should be simple, predictable and consistent for learners, particularly in early grades to ease into proficient academic literacy learning. Research indicates that the brain develops associations between spelling-sound correspondences and semantics in scripts where the orthographic patterns are consistent (Besner & Smith, 1992, p. 49).
The Table 2 below illustrates certain characteristics of selected African languages and English. The focus is on the orthographic distance between Sesotho and isiZulu as representations of other languages cognate to each of the selected two.
Orthographic distance among English, isiZulu and Sesotho
| Sepedi/Sesotho | isiZulu | English | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Language group | Bantu | Bantu | Germanic |
| Tonology | Complex with high and low tones. Tone can be grammatical and semantic. | Less complex with limited tonology. | Complex with many rules but limited tonology. |
| Vowels Consonants Vocabulary examples | Nine (contrastive) | Five (not contrastive) | Twenty-two |
| Thirty-nine. | Thirty | Twenty-one | |
| Mme | Omama | mother/missus/madam | |
| Jwang | Njani/utshani | how/grass | |
| Kamogelo/amogelo | Samukhele | welcome | |
| Dumelang/dumela/thobela | Sakhubona/salibonani | hello | |
| Hlokomela | beware | ||
| Ee | Yebo | yes | |
| Aowa | Cha | no | |
| Hle | Haibo | please | |
| Thusang | Ncedo | help | |
| Tsamaya | Hamba | go | |
| Sentence Construction | Ke a leboga/re a leboga | Ngiyabonga/siyabonga | Thank you |
| O kae/lekae? | Unjani/Linjani? | How are you? | |
| Le nna kegona, ke a | Ngiphilile, siyabonga | I’m fine, thank you | |
| leboa | Hamba khahle | Have a safe journey | |
| O be le leeto le le | |||
| bolokegilego | Usale khahle/Lisale | Goodbye | |
| Sala gabotse/salang | khahle | ||
| gabotse/sepela | |||
| gabotse/sepelang | Ngubani igama lakho? | What is your name? | |
| gabotse | Isikhathi sithini? | What is the time? | |
| Bitso la hao ke mang? | Uphumaphi? | Where are you from? | |
| Ke gopela nako |
Despite the close structural similarities between Indigenous languages as seen in sentence structure, there are vast differences between the ways of writing those sentences across the three language clusters. For learners who are proficient in at least one language across each cluster, written literacy learning becomes difficult due to different letter–sound correlations, disjunctive writing practices and inconsistent word patterns.
Development of orthographies of African languages
The languages of the pioneers of orthographies frequently leave forensic evidence of the basis upon which the orthographic systems were built. This section briefly outlines the origins of the different orthographies of the three language sub-clusters, namely the Nguni sub-cluster, the Sesotho sub-cluster and the Tshivenda-Xitsonga sub-clusters. Of these sub-cluster, it would appear from census results that the Nguni sub-cluster is the biggest of the three, spearheaded by the isiZulu language (Statssa, 2022).
In the period around 1849, the American Mission in Natal issued a circular call “to the missionaries and friends of education in Africa” (Grout, 1854, p. 247) for the uniform development and unification of orthography of all cognate African languages (Xhosa, Swati and Ndebele), resulting in the first grammar of isiZulu which was published in 1859 using the Roman alphabetic system (Grout, 1854; Land, 2015). The call followed realisations that different missionary groups had developed different orthographies for contiguous dialects across African languages, with the result that it was difficult to read with comprehension the different literary works that originated around that time. Following the publication of this isiZulu grammar, an elementary book on isiZulu orthography was published in 1850 by Reverend H. Shreuder of the Norwegian Missionary Society. The Bible translation work of other missionary groups such as the American Zulu Mission, the English Church Missionary Society and the London Missionary Society contributed in various ways that resulted in the conjoined isiZulu orthography we have today (Land, 2015; Grout, 1854). IsiZulu, a language spoken by about 27.3 million people in Southern Africa (Land, 2015) and about 11.6 million first-language speakers in South Africa (Statssa, 2022), is arguably the second biggest language in Southern Africa. The orthography of isiZulu has regular to near-perfect letter–sound representation (Land, 2015), and pronunciation is predictable from spelling, often called transparent orthography. Tone markings are not included but rather left up to the reader (Land, 2015). This system has seen limited revisions since the missionary times.
Sesotho orthographies vary markedly within South Africa from one dialect to another and from one region to another. The Sesotho orthography in Lesotho, which is an older orthography, differs in various ways from the newer orthographies used in South Africa, causing complex difficulties for learners in schools, as well as readers and writers of Sesotho. The differences are largely based on disagreements on three fundamental areas, namely the representation of vowels, the use of semi-vowels, and the sound of the letter /d/ (Machobane & Mokitimi, 1998; Makutoane, 2022; Matlosa, 2017). More specifically, these differences are based on the letters and markings of the initial syllabic nasal (at the phonemic level) and in written word division, as well as in the use of the diacritic sign and the apostrophe on vowels to distinguish ambiguities in spelling (Kosch, 2015; Matlosa, 2017; Makutoane, 2022). While the meaning of the word may not be affected by the differences in orthography, the effect of these differences on academic literacy is considerable. When a word such as Modimo (God) is also spelt as Molimo (Lesotho), matsatsi also as matṡatṡi (days), khotso and kgotso with little difference in pronunciation (though varying on occasion), and the same meaning as well as technically different spellings, this is bound to impede academic literacy development among multilingual learners of Sesotho. The recognisable orthographic differences within one language cluster in Indigenous languages are unlike what happens between different types of English such as American, Australian, British and even South African English. There are much fewer recognisable differences between the orthographies of English and African languages could take lessons from this fact.
The history of Sesotho orthography can be traced to the efforts of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society in Lesotho (Makutoane, 2022) and the French Missionary Society. These missionary groups introduced reading and writing in Sesotho in 1881 (Coldham, 1966; Smit, 1970). A later version of Sesotho orthography developed in South Africa appeared in 1959, and was then revised in 1989. Various other meetings to interrogate orthographies of Sesotho, Setswana and Sepedi as well as to investigate the possibilities of identifying the three as a unitary language followed but were rebuffed by the Lesotho side (Bible Society of South Africa, 1956; Machobane & Mokitimi, 1998; Makutoane, 2022; Matlosa, 2017; ). In summary, the history of Sesotho orthography is intricately linked to the translation of the Bible by missionaries, and attempts to harmonise the orthographies of the cognate Sesotho dialects has been ongoing since 1927.
Commenting on Sesotho orthographic discrepancies, Matlosa (2017, p. 55) remarks that,
The arbitrary use of o to represent the vowels/o/,/ᴐ/and/w/violates the fundamental principle of IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) which advocates for the use of one symbol to represent one sound and one sound to be represented by one symbol. The current Sesotho orthography continues to cause problems for both teachers who are teaching Sesotho and students who are learning it. These problems continue up to the tertiary level.
The prescription and invention of Xitsonga orthography are accredited to the work of Swiss missionaries Paul Berthoud and Adolphe Mabille in 1873 (Masunga, 1999, pp. 2–19), which resulted in the first biblical publication in 1883. The work of the Swiss missionaries was instrumental in the development of Xitsonga orthography until approximately 1938, when the Transvaal Native Education Department established language boards for different African languages (Maluleke, 2013, p. 9). Considerable developmental work has taken place since then to improve the spelling and phonetic system of the language (Mabaso, 2017). Despite this, Xitsonga orthography development remains largely neglected (Shabangu, 2016, pp. 25–29) due to its size as the 8th (4.5%) among the 12 official languages of South Africa. However, its departure from the orthographies of other Bantu languages within its sub-cluster renders it difficult to integrate its elements, notably the combination of disjunctive and conjoined systems across different grammatical categories.
Discussion
The strategic location of this study in a highly multilingual environment where many African languages interface suggests that the notion of home language and mother tongue do not apply. Learners in multilingual urban environments come to school with significant linguistic capital that sees them conversant, often to varying degrees, in multiple languages. Often, the languages spoken in the home, in the street, and learnt at school are different. While one language is normal in some monolingual environments, in urban areas of the global south monolingualism is often abnormal, bilingualism tolerable and three or more normal (Pattanayak, in Coleman, 2017a, p. 16). The composition of classes by home language would distort the lived reality where learners come with rich linguistic resources that they use in their everyday interactions with one another and with their teachers. Such translanguaging reality is manifested both in the street and in homes. So, languaging becomes a social practice rather than a monoglotic system that captures speakers in rigid linguistic boxes. Rather, language becomes social practice regulated by social factors and other underlying systems (Pennycook, 2010, p. 9) that cut across ethnic, cultural, and geographical boundaries, semiotic artefacts (spoken modes of semiosis, books, media, music, etc.) as well as spaces such as school, social media, the street and the market place in different ways (Banda, 2015, p. 258). As such, orthographies in these kinds of environments need to acknowledge the academic literacies of those for whom they are intended. Having disparate orthographies in multilingual environments is highly likely to confuse. A new orthography delinked, independent of ethnicity, dialects, languages, nations, countries or regions is required. One that is neutral and non-context dependent, primed on the supremacy of communication and meaning and thereby serving the purpose for which learners come to schools.
Most Bantu languages have a basic five-vowel system but varying numbers of consonants. While English has 21 vowels, these are all represented through the five vowels of the Roman alphabet. This paper advocates a simplified orthography premised on the lived multilingual realities of learners where spelling, rigid in-language prescriptions and other silos are dismantled in favour of a unified orthography. This orthography should be adapted to suit all Bantu languages, and so differ from the discrete nature of current writing and spelling systems that are not adapted to the rapidly urbanising circumstances of the fourth industrial revolution. Technology has assisted to a large extent in levelling walls that created language boundaries.
Conflicting interests and the number of stakeholders surrounding orthography mean that writing systems, whether harmonised or not, shall remain “frontiers of contestation” (Nankindu, 2013, p. 2; Banda, 2015, p. 262). The church, governments, chiefs, legal fraternity, industry and commerce, media, civic organisations, and institutions have vested interests in matters pertaining to languages and their orthographies. Similarly, the differences between experts on the base dialect, the systems to follow, and the framework for standard orthographies are influenced by varying interests. In some cases, the standard varieties within the same language sector are questioned as exclusionary (see the case of Tshivenda in Mandende & Mashige, 2018, as well as Sepedi in Rakgogo & Mandende, 2022).
That different countries have different language policies that reflect different thrusts on matters of language development is expected. Cases in point are that of Rwanda where the language of instruction changed from French to English in 2008 but 99.4% of the population speak Kinyarwanda (Brock Utne in Coleman, 2017a, p. 62), Malawi where Chichewa is the majority language but the education policy espouses English for educational purposes, and Kenya where Swahili is used only at primary school level and English for secondary and higher education. The home language is only used for access in the foundation phase (Grades 1–3) in the primary before reverting to the linguistic giants. In South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana and other African countries the home language is used in the first three years of schooling before switching to English medium of instruction. In some cases, linguistic, practical, and literacy objectives are overridden for sentimental reasons. The case of the Basotho of Lesotho rebuffing efforts to unify Sesotho, Sepedi and Setswana orthographies is a case in point. The consequences of such rebuttal remain far graver than the benefits accrued from cultural protectionism. That the Basotho of Lesotho would view orthography development as antagonising their language and culture is archaic thinking, based on the idea that languages and cultures are static. The rural monoglot is gone and the multilingual is here to stay. Societies are in motion, as are intercultural communications modelled by technology. We need to recognise integrated hybrid forms in both speech and writing as legitimate language for social discourse and for academic literacy (Banda, 2015). Hybridity in speech calls for fluidity in orthography. This is only achievable by removing the impediments to early literacy learning found in current African language orthographies. It is here where language planning, language codification, and development play a role. These assist in bringing tolerance to academic literacy practices, thereby promoting parity. Outdated and overly prescriptive orthographies, language policies, literacy pedagogies and practices have little chance of success in the rapidly changing digital world. It could, in fact, be argued that these just serve to erode the numbers of speakers and authors in those languages, a phenomenon tantamount to self-induced attrition. On the other hand, for these languages to develop and grow, it is essential to allow for the languaging and translanguaging of African languages and English in classrooms, in the same way as this occurs in everyday situations in the streets and villages.
Conclusion
An analysis of seven of South Africa’s languages clearly illustrates the existence of different orthographical and spelling systems. These could be harmonised to enable better intellectualisation (think of the case of Sepedi, Southern Sotho and Tswana). Efforts to harmonise these cognate languages and their orthographies need to be reinvigorated at a national and international level since all the Indigenous languages spoken in South Africa are also spoken beyond South African boundaries.
Some elements of English structures provide a sound basis for orthographic and lexical restructuring. Following this, orthographers and lexicographers in African languages could find instructive lessons from developed languages. We need to move beyond choosing between English and Indigenous languages, but rather see the two as complementary partners for literacy development.
Universities, media, and marketing agencies are assets in the reading quest that require greater utilisation. Further research in different multilingual contexts could enrich our understanding of how best to harvest the benefits of multilingualism, multilingual contexts and diversity in which the world finds itself today. Migration, urbanisation, intermarriages, digital technologies and multimedia all strongly support the argument that multilingualism is here to stay. In light of evidence that the number of Indigenous languages is diminishing the world over in favour of linguistic giants such as English, French and Mandarin, it remains noble to protect Indigenous languages through harmonisation of African language orthographies (Sefotho & Makalela, 2017), wider use, and greater investment in the standardisation, intellectualisation, and acceptance of languages.